DNR permit- City to Dump wastewater PM River &Lake

[Sweater Cows!]

In a different thread AQ said "This may be way off the beaten track,  but I saw tonight that the LDN has an article that expressly enables through special DNR permits, the City to Dump wastewater into the PM River and Lake, given it has passed some sort of tests. Apparently the old formulas are not up to present passable criteria, and they want some changes by May 1st before renewing the permits as of October 1st. The City hired Prein and Newhoff again for $50K to get a new formula for approval and another $10K for testing for the DNR approval staff. How come if you or I, Joe Public, dare litter any can, butt, gas, or paper into that River or Lake we would get fined for littering and maybe worse? But the government can DUMP Treated Wastewater into it with permits and the DNR approves it? This seem a bit strange and very two-faced to me, don't you think? Plus the City taxpayers already paid $Millions to build a state of the art wastewater plant some years ago, why aren't they processing it there, instead of a precious natural resource? This has me bugged right now!"

 

I made a new thread to keep the other on topic, hope you don't mind AQ.

[AQUAMAN]

Thanks Sheila, this is a travesty in any form if you ask me, and I'm not an environut as you guys know too. This PM River is a very important natural resource to the entire State of Michigan, and serves to produce millions of reproducing salmon and many other species of fish and wildlife. Dumping wastewater into it, well my friends, should be a CRIME in any shape, way, or form, formula! This is a CROCK by the DNR if you ask me.

[Sweater Cows!]

Maybe I misunderstand.

But I *think* according to a conversation that I vagely remember from this summer with one of the village guys who does something with the wastewater here in the village(get called if the pumps break or something)that out here  our wastewater goes to the ponds and then goes into a creek. But it goes to 3 ponds before the creek so it is supposed to be clean and drinkable once it comes to the creek.

 

Is this what they are talking about? or is Ludington actually "dumping" unclean water into the river and lake?

[Guidothesemipsuedocaptitalistpig]

I believe the new formula that Ludington needs the waiver for is the condition of the water after it goes through all of the ponds and such. The EPA has been tightening their standards on what is unacceptable and being as it is the cities turn to renew they just got caught by the new formula.

I am not normally a fan of the way Ludington does business, but in this case, I believe the rug got pulled out from under them by the Feds.

http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/guidance/cwa/304m/archive/upload/2009...

 

The pdf I posted is very involved and more than most of us can assume knowledge of. The more important point here is the dates and the fact the plants need to be re-licensed every couple of years.

 

I worked for an environmental clean up company for a while.. the reason I had work in many cases was to clean up ponds and such that had incurred to many heavy metals or such and needed to be vacuumed out and retested. Not to imply that is the solution in this case.. just scope of my knowledge is all.

 

[AQUAMAN]

The way I understood the article was that a "sludge pond" for new testing was allocated another $10K, and as far as I'm concerned, the P&N consultants are another payola scam to get approval for an environmental curse on our natural resources, those $50K in funds trickling down and around to who knows who in the end. It appears this behavior and dumping has been an ongoing thing for some time now, and I don't believe it's happened and been approved in the past, but it has now been revealed.

[AQUAMAN]

I would have thought payola had some meaning these days, not so much in the 50's, but now????????????????

[AQUAMAN]

Oh well, let the PM River go to HXXX, who cares, right?